Carrie Soto Is Back(10)

“I’m not everybody. I’m supposed to be the greatest.”

My father nodded. “And you will be. Today you proved that. You played the best you’ve ever played in your life today.”

I looked up at him.

“Have you ever hit that many groundstrokes that bounced just in front of the baseline?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Have you ever served three aces in a row like you did today?”

I started tapping my foot as I listened to him. “No,” I said. “My first serve was great today.”

“You were on fire, cari?o,” he said. “You ran down the ball almost every shot.”

“Yeah, but then I hit it into the net half the time.”

“Because you are not yet who you will one day be.”

I looked up at him, my guarded heart opening ever so slightly.

“Every match you play, you are one match closer to becoming the greatest tennis player the world has ever seen. You were not born that person. You were born to become that person. And that is why you must best yourself every time you get on the court. Not so that you beat the other person—”

“But so that I become more myself,” I finished.

“Now you’re getting it,” my father said. “You played the best tennis you’ve ever played in your life.”

“And you’re happy,” I said. “With me. Because I played great.”

“Because you played the best you ever have.”

“And every day I will play better and better,” I said. “Until one day, I am the greatest.”

“Until you’ve reached the fullest of your potential. That’s the most important thing. We don’t stop for one second until you are the best you can be,” he said. “We don’t rest. Until it’s finally true. Algún día.”

“Because then I will be who I was born to be.”

“Exacto.”

My father turned back to the steering wheel and put the car in drive. But before he pulled out onto the road, he looked at me one more time. “Do not wonder again, hija, if I would stop coaching you,” he said. “Do not ever wonder that. Nunca.”

I nodded, smiling. I thought I understood perfectly what he was trying to tell me.

“Since today went okay,” I said a few moments later, on the drive home, “I was thinking, about what I did. You know, that worked.”

My father nodded. “Contame.”

I gave him a list of the strategies I’d used, a few of my split-second decisions. And then the last one, “También, just before the match, I cleaned the tops of my shoes.”

My father raised his eyebrows.

“I think maybe it’s a good-luck thing,” I said. “You know? Like some of the pros do.”

My father smiled. “Me encanta.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And I think that will help me, you know? I’ll just keep getting better and better. Until one day, when I’m good enough to go pro.”





1971–1975


At age thirteen, I entered the junior championships. I shocked everyone except my father and myself when I won the SoCal Junior Championships that year and catapulted myself up the rankings.

My first time at Junior Wimbledon, I made it all the way to the quarterfinals. The next year, I made it to the final. Quickly, my father and I came to understand that while I was great on a hard surface and could hold my own on clay, I dominated on grass. Winning Junior Wimbledon went from a dream to a goal.

My father took my already aggressive training schedule and kicked it into its highest gear. We went to every tournament we could, regardless of my school schedule. We flew all over the country.

Also, I noticed that my father took on twice as many clients when we were home. Occasionally, he would return to the house late at night with a bounce in his step that I found puzzling.

At first, I thought that maybe he had a girlfriend. But one night, I dragged the truth out of him: He’d been hustling blue bloods at the club. He was making hundreds of dollars in a night.

When I asked him why, he said it kept his mind sharp. But I knew the prices for renting out grass courts, and flights to New York and London, and the entry fees for tournaments.

The next time I saw him leave to go play a match, I walked out onto our tiny stoop and called to him just as his hand grabbed the car door handle.

“Are you sure about all of this?” I asked.

He looked up at me. “Never been more sure of anything in my life,” he said.

I took a deep breath. “I want to drop out of school and dedicate my full days to tennis.”

The Virginia Slims tour was proving to be a significant moneymaker for women who went pro. I was already good enough to compete in some of the main draws. He wouldn’t need to hustle dupes much longer.

“Not yet,” he said. But I could see the corners of his lips turning up. And I could feel the rest of the sentence, though it remained unsaid. Not yet, but soon.



* * *



—

Unless I was competing, I was out on the court from eight a.m. every morning until early afternoon.

From about three to five p.m., I took a break to study with a tutor my father had hired from the yellow pages. And then my dad and I went over strategy for about an hour, which would sometimes bleed into dinner.